News & Issues

Reinvest In Inner City Schools

Posted on October 02, 2014 by Katherine Taylor

Two years ago, the PC party campaigned on a promise of increased sustainable and predictable funding for our schools. Unfortunately, as with so many other things the PC Government continues to overpromise and underdeliver.

Meanwhile, the Calgary-Elbow PC candidate and newly appointed Education Minister Gordon Dirks has a record of closing inner city schools. In fact, both the PC and Wildrose parties plan to divert funds from existing schools to build new ones in the suburbs.

As a father of two daughters attending schools in Calgary-Elbow (William Reid and Elboya) this worries me a lot.

At William Reid, our school was forced this year to squeeze two classrooms into the library. There are 34 kids in a single kindergarten classroom and the remaining classes are all well above the Alberta Education class size guidelines for optimal learning. Across Calgary-Elbow we hear a similar story. At Western Canada High School, students are facing classrooms with over 40 students.

The graph below demonstrates the impact the decline in funding from the PC government has had on class sizes at William Reid School, where my daughter attends.

We can do better for Alberta

Our children deserve the best education we can give them. In order to continue to prepare students for a bright future we must take action. It’s time for real change.

As MLA for Calgary-Elbow, I will fight to take action:

1) Reinvest in inner city schools

The Alberta Party will protect inner city schools through more teaching staff to ensure our children’s classroom sizes are inline with recommended size guidelines for optimal learning.

2) Fund Growing Demand For New Schools

The Alberta Party will ensure there are enough classrooms in both the inner city and the suburbs of our fast growing cities.

3) Address the unacceptable backlog of maintenance ignored by the PC Government for years

The Alberta Party will tackle the maintenance backlog with much needed repairs and maintenance for our aging schools and provide adequate, stable long term funding for the future.